Child protection SS for those following my story

[claw4]

Social worker has requested a meeting with school, myself and any other professionals involved in ds's care, after school made a referral to social services on the basis of child protection issues to 'get my family some help'

Social worker has made no contact with me at all.

No doubt school are planning on getting everyone in the room to agree with them.

But this is a good sign, right?

Boc, the disability team have just emailed me giving me the name of the manager and said to contact him.

I have emailed back asking for his email address. I will email him, i want whatever is said in writing.

Thanks Coff, im starting to think removing him from school is the best thing.

Have to go, thanks for all advice everyone. Sanity savers

Claw, I have found 'Contact A Family' good for this kind of situation.

What Boch said.

And

You can write to the school stating that you do not will not be attending multidisciplinary meeting, and that you do not give consent to sharing information with outside agencies including SS.

SS will then have to decide whether this action warrants a CP initiation. Without evidence it is unlikely but if suspicious they will come directly to you in which case they will close the case as fast as they have opened it which becomes your defence.

Then go to GP like others have said. Take the photos.

Stop defending yourself. When you give explanations for behaviour you start a dialogue that can be questioned and interpreted. You have nothing to defend against when allegations are ludicrous. Confident dismissal is better. If a school accuse you of anything simply ask for it in writing and collect.

Except if they agree to do SA then information will need to be shared. Claw I think things are rushing a bit because we all feel outraged for you. I think speak to the lawyer and get advice, take some time. There may be downsides to pulling out of co-operating / taking your DS out of school. When is the SA decision due? If LA grant SA and refuse to treat referral as CP then will school wind their neck in?
Maybe decline this meeting until SS have confirmed the purpose - if its not CP surely you can decline SS involvement or at least ask for the referral to move to disabled childrens team for support? Then see what school does next.
We have a disabled childrens team SW and they have always dealt direct with us and never got info from school

Claw, take the weekend to gather your thoughts and de-stress if possible. Your head must be full of 100s of thoughts & emotions just now.
If you can find a Solicitor that deals in CP Law & Social Work Practise, that would be most useful for you. IPSEA etc. deal with Education Law, so cannot advise on this.
The assessment procedure you have mentioned several times, is an assessment for a dc with ASN-SN, identified by any agency, including a parent, and passed to the Child & Families Disability Team. To move this situation forward, you must find out, if your ds has been referred to this team. (Of course, dc with ASN can have CP issues too), & you need to establish whether ds has been referred due to his ASN, or because of suspected CP concerns.
The school, have passed on their "concerns" to SS. At the moment, your ds, according to the SW you spoke to, does Not meet the threshold to begin CP proceedings. But, be clear, the SW is saying the Multi-agency meeting will help her to decide, if after hearing all agencies opinions and of course yours, whether there is now enough evidence for CP threshold to be met. Until this meeting, it is unlikely that SS will close the file.
I'm trying to help you make sense of what is happening at present, as reading your posts, it appears you are, understandably, a bit confused.
So, in the time you have before the Meeting, take Legal advise, prepare a File with Reports from CAMHS, etc, that explain ds difficulties.
School may be "causing trouble", but you don't want to be ambushed at the meeting, & make sure you take someone with you.
No-one is going to take your ds away, & hopefully the meeting will open the door for SS to provide support for ds.
After the meeting, it will be cleare if you need to put a hold on information-sharing between Agencies, & whether to take your ds out of school etc.
Take Care & try not to worry too much.

Star i have written to school telling them they do not have my agreement for any meeting to go ahead, until i met with SW. I phoned SW and she said they will not agree to meet with me, but they are prepared to attend a multi-agency meeting, apparently i can decline their involvement. She said that they are 'there for the child, not me', so effectively i will be made to look 'unreasonable' if i decline their involvement without any explaination. So i have said i have no objections to a meeting, AFTER i have met social worker. So hopefully i have declined their involvement, but wont be made to look unreasonable?

Justabout them treating it as a CP issue, would be the best thing, but they are sitting on the fence and refusing to met with me. Which is what i need to address, but i think i need to bide my time a bit because of statementing process. I dont want to go rushing in, before thinking it through.

Agnes Do you think this is why they have done it, obviously CP issue i have to explain myself to SS, they then share with LA exactly what i have?

SA decision is due early next week. I dont think school will wind their neck in at any stage, i think i need to get a statement and find another school. I think taking ds out of school at this time would do more harm than good. I did this last time, new school started off giving ds lots of help 20 hours of TA etc, etc, so Tribunal ruled this school could meet his needs from within their own budget, then after Tribunal they removed it all.

SS have told me the purpose of them attending the meeting would be to see if anything was said at the meeting that would make it a CP issue! They dont have a disability team as such, but an early intervention team who help schools to help children who are failing to thrive and with the statement process. So we are back to square one again school are saying its me who needs the help, not them and im not being given a chance to give my views.

Bigpants, thank you for summing that up, that is what i was trying to say, but you have summed it up perfectly. SW is saying a multi agency meeting will help her decide if there is enough evidence for CP threshold.

According to the SS published criteria for exactly the stage that ds is at, they refer to it as a certain name, so i know i have the right publication.

1st step is for SW to meet with parents and discuss concerns and gain consent for this assessment to take place, if consent is given step 2, if consent isnt given decide whether a referal for CP is necessary.

2nd step if consent is given for SW to complete this assessment with child and family.

3rd step multi agency meeting to decide aims and outcome etc.

School asked for my consent to refer to SS disability team. I gave they then referred to CP team.

School contacted me and asked my permission for a lets call it a EAM (early assessment meeting) with multi agency.

Seems we are missing all the steps, that actually involve me having a view.

So i think my first step woud be to contact the SW team manager and telling him the conversation i had with SW, tell him im a little confused after speaking with SW and could he please explain the process to me and give my a copy of EAM assessment criteria and guidelines?

or should i say i already have a copy of EAM assessment criteria and guidelines and this is why i am confused?

Just i dont want to appear defensive and get on the wrong side of SW.

What do you guys think?

Try shifting your perspective. This has nothing to do with the removal of support in the absence of IEP evidence of sufficient progress and is not the basis of your appeal. The issue of whether the anxiety is 'caused' by home or school has been resolved by Camhs - the school have attempted to resurrect it by referring you to SS. The photographs provide documented evidence and are therefore appropriate.

You need to direct your energy and attention to what is important - the appeal to meet DS's needs. Don't waste your breathe or energy on this ridiculous last-ditch attempt.

I am sure that the SS would be more than happy to delay any meeting at the moment - this is a very stressful period of the statementing process and you are sure that the school and the SS would not seek to exacerbate that stress - especially seeing as the school believe that the stress of the statementing process may be having a negative impact on DS?? SS don't think it is urgent and are not falling over themselves to get involved. Let the school do the running - don't chase them - actually avoid communicating with them because they combine being useless with being acutely annoying. You need to stop trying to influence what the school does, they are not important, they will do what they will do. Side-step the arrow and do what you need to do.

Claw, you know that you'll figure this out don't you!? And despite how things look right now you'll come out blinking in the sunshine.

You're an incredible woman in what'll that you have achieved so far. It's just a curved ball, but you've even had them before. You've just forgotten because they've been dealt with.

Your Ds is still young enough for this 'education' you are getting to be useful in the long term. Keep to the bigger picture and be careful not to be dragged down by muddy detail.

I think school have done it to confuse the picture / shift any blame coming in their direction to you. Although there is a possibility they really do believe you are over anxious / imagining problems where none exist because they are too ignorant to see them. But I think if school really believed it was you being over-anxious they would not have gone straight to CP they would have tried to reassure you / work with you.

I think you should sit tight and see what SS do next, at least until after SA decision. With a bit of luck (and you deserve some!) they will tell school its not CP and they won't take it further. I think talking to the manager and saying you are confused is sensible. You are confused. And also it shows you are prepared to engage with them but as you do not think there are any CP issues, only school failure you are confused why they would put you in a conflict situation with a school who have just referred you to CP. Given you and school clearly have different perspectives and you have tried to work with school over this for a significant period of time I would say you don't see a further meeting will help. Its not as though you have not had multi team meetings before. I think it is reasonable to ask what else SS can bring to the school situation. If they are offering other support e.g. short breaks etc then you can say fine but that is confidential between me and you and no need for school to be involved.

Agnes & Star say it perfectly.

School are trying divert attention from their own failings. You need to stay focused on the prize - a decent statement, everything else right now is just white noise.

Cos I'm an anxious cynic who always feels better when my own back is covered I am gonna advise you to have a 30 min free session with a CP solicitor or talk to contact-a-family, just to ensure you get the formal reassurance from someone official that it's gonna turn out fine. Other than that just keep on, keeping on. Knowing the legalities always makes me feel stronger, so I'm hoping it'll work for you too.

Keepon, what am worried about with CAMHS is that if they hear from school (which no doubt they will do) that they are providing all this wonderful help and ds is making all this great progress and his needs are being met by school, then they hear from SS saying the same (as they have just taken schools word for it) that CAMHS then might think its a possibility that home are responsible.

When i first went to CAMHS previous school were saying exactly the same as this school, im over anxious about ds's needs and the cause of ds's anxiety. Second school is saying same. CAMHS might think 2 schools cannot be wrong.

CAMHS didnt tell me what previous school were reporting to them and never asked me, they just conducted their work as if school were telling the truth, bit like SS really. The turning point came when i learnt what school were saying about me ie copy of school file etc, i could then defend their allegations and proved to CAMHS that school were responsible for ds's anxiety.

I feel i do need to explain that ds isnt making progress, getting wonderful help etc to keep CAMHS on side, without them im .

I can do this, without giving too much away ie not saying anything that school/LA are not already aware of.

Thanks guys, will have a good read tomorrow, im going to take the night off and have a glass of wine, sit round the table with my kids and play some cards, board games etc as it should be. They deserve it and so do i.

Much appreciated, back tomorrow to have a good read

Thinking aloud,

1. Social worker is saying: not enough info to open case, not enough to close it
2. SW wants to meet with school etc to decide if it's CP matter or not
3. High chance SW will get inaccurate and incomplete info from school
4. Meanwhile camhs report is out of date, you get rattled, distraction from SA
5. Outcomes: SW closes case, decides child in need, or starts CP investigation

Since you can only directly influence 4. perhaps that's where to focus your energies. Plus find a family lawyer who knows about CP, asd and mental health.

DS hides much of his behaviour in public including school but the effort of this means that he is perceived as extremely quiet and shy and to have very low self esteem. Often teachers have rarely heard him speak. So if I mention constant talking or meltdowns they cannot imagine a child that they think would be less likely to behave that way and they look at me as if I am delusional. As I was the only one complaining it seemed logical to them that the problem was at home. ime the child's anxiety is often used as a 'barometer' to see how a particular situation is impacting. DS's comm paed was keen to highlight that the manifestation of stress (tics in DS's case) reduced during school holidays. Do you have 'objective' evidence of reduction in self-harming prior to support being removed or school holidays or can you make this 'real' - ie written Camhs record of stress secondary to school experience?

Claw, I would say don't go to any meeting without an impartial supporter to take notes. It's good to get someone else's views on meetings afterwards too in my experience.
Is there anyone knowledgeable on this board that you know lives near you? I am thinking of you Claw, I hope that your situation becomes more settled soon.

Can Ipsea really not help? Is it worth trying again and asking for someone with experience in both education matters and social care to advise you, I'm sure they have such people.

Hope you ok today claw and have managed a bit of a rest and relax. x

Sorry guys my laptop broke, i had to take it in to be repaired.

Keepon that is exactly ds and that is exactly what school think. They think he will demonstrate any anxiety right there and then on the spot. CAMHS have explained in writing that anxieties from the day, will follow him to the night and its demonstrated through harming himself, not sleeping, not eating etc.

CAMHS have told school in writing that it is confusion from his environment, social interactions and paricularly unstructured peer group activities that is causing his anxieties. This also ties in with what ds reports to me at home ie he is upset and distressed by incidents at playtimes, he gets distressed and anxious about being punished for incidents at playtimes as he doesnt understand why etc, which i have reported to school numerous times. School see this as me being nuisance and being overprotective, no matter how many times i try to explain.

For example SALT recommends that ds needs language to be recast and broken down. School think that ds has no problem with this, so dont. Then ds doesnt understand why he is being punished and i report this to school. School say he does understand. Then i ask what strategies they used to make sure he understood and they think i am being 'over anxious' as he clearly understands!

Class teacher has also reported to experts that ds gets anxious when speaking, extremely anxious about getting things right (i wonder why seen as he doesnt understand why he is being punished) EP reported ds was just packing back and forth in the playground etc, etc.

Its all there, just nobody, but me manages to pull it all together iyswim

Tired nope IPSEA told me they only deal with Tribunals etc. I wont be attending any meeting with school, its pointless. I will explain myself to a Tribunal. Thanks, it is difficult trying to juggle all this at the same time.

Starfish had a lovely evening with the kids, well my 16 year old and his girlfriend, hardly kids! and ds. It was much needed. Then my laptop broke, still fixed now and its going to panel today, so fingers crossed. Will wait for decision before i do anything else.